Need for Speed Underground 2

Share.

The Nintendo DS gets yet another street racing game. Check out how this one competes with the rest.

By Craig Harris

For a system that's only been around for six months, it's a little odd to already have three street racing games vying for your handheld dollars so early in the Nintendo DS's life. Need for Speed Underground 2 was announced well before the system's launch, but it spent a little more time in the oven during its development cycle, releasing a significant difference after the console renditions' time in the sun. The final product is a decent demonstration of the Nintendo DS' 3D capabilities, and does a fine job at offering a solid, balanced racing experience on the handheld. Its real weakness is that Need for Speed Underground 2 doesn't go above and beyond in its features and presentation. It's perfectly comfortable as a "solid" design.

Need for Speed Underground 2, developed by European studio Pocketeers, has spent the past few years on EA's racing franchise, but in a much smaller format in the form of Game Boy Advance renditions of Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, Need for Speed: Underground and Need for Speed Underground 2. When faced with the task of bringing the series to the Nintendo DS, the team looked to the design it created for the Game Boy Advance instead of attempting the free-roaming structure of the console game. The DS version, naturally, plays better than the edition the team's created for the GBA thanks to the DS system's strengths in 3D, but the team could have put a little more effort into the wow factor to make it stand further apart from its previous handheld effort. It's fun, but just a little too straightforward and routine.

This racing game handles very well with the digital D-pad, and pushes a lot of variety in the different style of races. You've got standard races against three computer opponents, time trial challenges for solo racers, a drag race design to test out players' shifting prowess, and a pretty clever "Own the Zone" racing challenge. Own the Zone segments each course into separate parts, and players claim that portion of the track by earning the fastest time at the start and end of that zone's perimeter. Opponents can steal the zone away if they get the faster time, and the map on the lower screen keeps track of which zone is owned by which player. It's a neat addition to the racing series that definitely builds up variety in the design.

The designers spread out all of these challenges in a structure that's allows players to freely select any mode. So, if you really wanted to, you can race all of the Circuit Modes, then all of the Own the Zone challenges, then all of the Drift drag races. But since the competition gets increasingly fierce in each of the game modes, there's no way you'd be able to complete one particular mode on its own; you have to sample each mode in order to earn the necessary points to upgrade your vehicle high enough to beat the computer opponents in the later levels.

But even with these options, the game still lacks some elements that would have made the good ideas great. In "Own the Zone," for example, the lower screen doesn't give the important information, like how much time you missed stealing the zone from the other racers. The second screen does a good job keeping track of other racers, but with the added screen real estate the developers could have offered up other handy details, like how many seconds ahead or behind the opposition you are, or what the current best lap time for each of the four in-game racers are. The game also focuses on vehicle customization, but it never immediately shows how buying certain parts will improve the vehicle's speed or handling capabilities, so you'll just have to assume that buying a better part for your engine will make it go faster. And oddly enough, this is one of the first 3D racing games to not include any sort of replay mode, so you won't be able to relive some particularly stunning moments in the races.